"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty." – Rainer Maria Rilke

Ordinary

Walking into the Doran house on Monday nights for Roundtable always brings a smile to my face. Before I even reach my hand out to turn the doorknob I can already hear laughter and chatter from within and smell something delicious cooking in the oven. Each week we gather there together, the 15 Fellows, Katherine, Greg, Dennis & his family, to share in life. Reclaiming the act of sitting down to meal together is a powerful reminder of one of the primary aims of the Fellows Program; exploring the ways in which our lives matter.
How often do we arrive at the end of a given day wondering to ourselves, “What did I do today? Will it have any lasting importance?” The dust covering the lenses through which we see the world makes it so hard sometimes for us to see the answers to these questions. One work day gives way to the next, a blur of spreadsheets, legal documents and phone calls. Yet somehow over the course of the past two months, through prayer and earnest conversation, we have just begun to wipe the dust from one another’s eyes enough to catch a glimpse of God’s work unfurling in our daily lives.

Hope

God created Adam from the very dust of the earth, should it come as any surprise that he can make beautiful things from of the dust of our lives? One of the first things we did together as a Fellows class was to share our testimonies; how God has been shaping each of us throughout our twenty-some years. It was such a privilege to hear how God’s hands have been conforming each of my friends to look more and more like Him. Some of our stories are loud; God has moved mightily to deliver us from tough situations and convict us, changing lives in short order.

The stuff of day-to-day life is quieter, admittedly, but the changes I’ve witnessed in the past two months can still be heard. Several fellows have taken steps to glorify God with the ways in which they spend their money, a middle school student has found sweet certainty of her salvation, and dozens of conversations have been sparked by the idea of a program designed to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in every area of our lives. Friends, the gospel is at work here. We’re not the same people we were yesterday or last year. God is making all things new.